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The Senate in Rwanda has approved the bill on protection of Intellectual Property Rights and effective enforcement mechanisms. The bill on intellectual property covers patent rights on trademarks and copyrights, and gives creators exclusive rights to their creations thereby providing an incentive for the author or inventor to develop and share the information rather than keep it secret.
A US-European collaboration has laid patent claims to all human (and some animal) antibodies against the critical HA gene of the H5N1 "bird flu" virus, an international patent application released last week reveals. The company has also specifically claimed DNA (and amino acids) taken from at least 3 Vietnamese survivors of H5N1. The DNA, which encodes antibodies useful for fighting bird flu infection, is contained in human cell lines established from the victims' blood.
Reform advocates including the Washington, D.C.-based Business Software Alliance say current patent law makes innovation industries a shooting gallery for companies whose sole business model is to acquire patents and extract licensing income from companies trying to bring products to market. But supporters of this practice say such firms are merely helping small-time innovators protect their rights.
PIJIP is actively engaged in the analysis and reform of patent, trademark and copyright laws. PIJIP faculty and staff have filed amicus briefs in the Supreme Court and Federal Appellate Courts, drafted model legislative provisions, prepared and delivered testimony to Congress, and consulted for numerous domestic and international non-profit and intergovernmental organizations and legislators on issues involving intellectual property law reform. In addition, PIJIP events held throughout the year highlighted many intellectual property law reform issues. Most of the PIJIP events remain available for download via webcast.
This article describes the history and character of the exclusions from patentable subject matter for "laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas" (or science, nature, and ideas), which include "mathematical 'algorithm[s],'" "products of nature," and "mental processes."
Brief of Joshua Sarnoff for Ten Law Professors as Amici Curiea Supporting Appellee Director of the Patent and Trademarket Office, In Re Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw for Hearing En Banc. (April 7, 2008).
The Bilski case addresses the patentability of a three-step method of hedging commodities consumption price
risks.
Christine Haight Farley, Trademark Dilution Law: A Remedy in Search of a Harm, 16 Fordham Intell. Prop., Media & Ent. L.J. 101 (2006). SSRN Link
This paper discusses the analyzes the law and policy of trademark dilution in the wake of the Supreme Court’s
opinion in Moseley v. Victoria's Secret Catalogue.
Joshua Sarnoff, Analysis of Supreme Court patent law decision in KSR v. Teleflex, No. 04-135. SCOTUS Blog Link
In its unanimous decision in KSR Int’l. Co v. Teleflex Inc., No. 04-1350 (April 30, 2007), the Supreme Court expressly overruled the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s “teaching-suggestion-motivation” (“TSM”) test for finding a claimed invention obvious and reaffirmed the Court’s precedents regarding the obviousness of patents “based on the combination of elements found in the prior art” where there the combination “does no more than yield predictable results.”
Joshua Sarnoff, The Historic and Modern Doctrine of Equivalents and Claiming the Future, Part I (1790-1870), 87 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Socy. 371 (2005). SSRN Link
Patent law has extended protection beyond the explicitly disclosed examples of an invention described in a patent specification, protecting some range of equivalent substituted technologies. This aritcle describes conflicts among the modern doctrine and prosecution history estoppel and additional implied disclaimer and claim scope doctrines.
Joshua Sarnoff, The Historic and Modern Doctrine of Equivalents and Claiming the Future, Part II (1870-1952), 87 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Socy. 441 (2005). SSRN Link
Until 1950, the Supreme Court consistently limited the doctrine of equivalents under the 1870 Patent Act to the scope of application of construed claim language. In the 1952 Patent Act, Congress neither codified nor impliedly ratified the doctrine of equivalents.
Joshua Sarnoff, The Doctrine of Equivalents and Claiming the Future After Festo, 14 Fed. Cir. B.J. 403 (2005). SSRN Link
In two recent cases, the Supreme Court unanimously approved of the modern doctrine of equivalents articulated in Graver Tank (1950). The Court also extended equivalents protection to later-arising technologies and imperfectly reconciled the modern doctrine with the doctrine of prosecution history estoppel for amended claims.
Christine Haight Farley, Judging Art, 79 Tul. L. Rev. 805 (2005). SSRN Link
What is art? Surprisingly, this question is addressed in various places in the law. At these junctures, courts typically attempt to avoid making a judgment. Indeed, the law generally resists any definition of art. The reasons given for this are that these determinations are too subjective for the courts and that judges lack proper training and expertise. Thus, the doctrine of avoidance is the most stable and explicitly stated proposition to be found in these encounters. However, the question of whether an object is a work of art for treatment under the law is often unavoidable.
Christine Haight Farley, Copyright Law’s Response to the Invention of Photography, 65 U. Pitt. L. Rev. , 385 (2004). SSRN Link
In 1884, the Supreme Court was presented with dichotomous views of photography. In one view, the photograph was an original, intellectual conception of the author-a fine art. In the other, it was the mere product of the soulless labor of the machine. Much was at stake in this dispute, including the booming market in photographs and the constitutional importance of the originality requirement in copyright law.
Brown Bag Lunch Speaker Series.
PIJIP sponsors brown bag lunches with area academics to discuss on-going research and recent events on IP and information justice topics. The lunches are normally held on a Tuesday from 12:30-2pm. To be added to a mailing list to recieve Brownbag Lunch invitations, email sroberts@wcl.american.edu
Works in Progress Intellectual Property Colloquium, September 28-29, 2007.
The Colloquium offers an opportunity for intellectual property scholars to present their works-in-progress and get early feedback from their colleagues.
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property, October 25, 2007.
Each Fall, PIJIP sponsors a distinguished lecture on intellectual property that is attended by many of the nation’s leading IP scholars and practitioners. On October 25, 2007, Trademark Professor Thomas McCarthy will deliver the Distinguished Lecture. The most recent lecture was given by Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals who discussed "Revisiting Fair Use.”
Attribution for photos posted on flickr.com under a creative commons license: Photo of mathematical equation by dullhunk. Photo of Chicago Board of Trade by Larsz. Photo of Victoria's Secret bag by iirraa. Photo of gas petal from Patent n. 6,237,565. Photo of steam engine locomotive by DigitalParadox. Photo of airplane by Feuillu.
Joshua Sarnoff. Shaking the Foundations of Patentable Subject Matter. Preliminary Discussion Draft (April, 2008).